Whats happened to this community

[t3rr0rz 10]

I agree, if you look at the increase of popularity in the steam game rust, the community went down hill!

[lawndartleo 109]

More people means more riff-raff.... and more positive players.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Steam maybe part of it, but there is always more than one reason.

I'm an old guy who started with OFP in summer of 2001, and had chance to experience this forum community around December 2001. Started out as a member, became a mod, now a retired mod, and mostly just an old guy fondly remembering the good old days. :P

Back then, OFP was the most revolutionary game. There were plenty of FPS games like Rainbow Six series(including Ghost Recon) and later Battlefield, but OFP's map editior, large map, as well as its more realistic game play, set it apart.

That era probably was the Golden Era of FPS gaming, as well as PC gaming. Just about everyone who could play jumped in and OFP was no exception. There were many interesting characters, and plenty of people to make just about any community a bustling community.

I was also somewhat familiar with an overseas OFP community, and even in that country, there were at least 4 clans at the time, despite mediocre distributor support.

With so many people of various experience being in it, there were some serious work getting done. Kegetys made some very awesome mods, and some group managed to come up with decription file for missions and terrain designing program.

A lot of innovations for OFP were driven by the community, thanks to talents and dedication of many members. There were even mods that tried to make OFP(or ARMA) as a bit of commading simulations(former moderator denoir was part of it, IIRC)

Multiplayer over internet was a bit of difficult thing since you couldn't just join in the middle of missions.

Then came then ARMA, with serious improvements over OFP. It was not easy for BIS to come up with ARMA due to the split from Codemasters and BIS growing bigger and bigger, as well as working on VBS, but the community kept up its work.

However, the scenery was changing. More and more casual players were moving over to consoles, and it was a matter of time before PC gaming took a back seat to the whole thing. This is in part because people wanted something more convenient and easier to jump in. Gone were the days where planning and hard work was valued, and the main focus was on entertainment.

This meant general population for PC gaming, for serious ones like OFP/ARMA was losing members.

Add in the global recession, and people have to choose between real life work or game.

Then the players of the OFP/ARMA era started to join work force, or had other real life obligations.

All these combined to the community being smaller, and thus slightly less talents compared to its heydays.

By the time ARMA2 demo was out, I was one of the poor guys busy with the real life. I still have OFP and ARMA on my PC, but I honestly don't play it as much due to my real life taking more of my time. I hardly have games on my iPhone now.

The world has moved to types of games where it is easy to fire up and now convenient to access, like on our smartphones. ARMA is not a game that fits in to the category.

Even back about 3 years ago, people were complaining that ARMA was a game where you had to walk 5 minutes only to get shot by some sniper several hundred meters away, thus getting little action. People want instant gratifications and ARMA is a bit away from that.

DayZ mod was quite a hit. At the time, I was more into other things than games, and I saw posts about this mod even in that forum. I didn't have interest in games so have no opinion but just the fact that the mod was mentioned in some other community was the sign that it had wider appeal. Maybe that could have contributed to another change in the community.

Let's not forget that the world we live in experienced one of the most prolonged armed conflict. During that time, interest in any thing related to military was high. As time went on, the interest was lost, and again, a serious games like ARMA takes the hit.

I am glad I had chance to be part of this community(and still come back occasionally), and I hope those of you who joined after my departure so I didn't get to ban...err...interact :P keep on doing what you like. Sometimes you will be frustrated, sometimes your real life commands your attention, but as long as there is a community to come back to, you can still enjoy.

 

Cheers to BIS, to the current members, and all the past members who probably left, but had great memories with. :) :803: :beeeers: :cheers: :cc: :biggrin_o:
 

[Vasily.B 529]

I was playing OPF right together with GTA 3, but as GTA 3 was sunday game for me, OFP took more value. I was allways gamer, didnt writed any addon as i didnt know how, till today some things is bit misunderstood for me (to be honest most of them). I didnt buyed Arma when it first appear, i had old PC that could'nt handle it, and my money was very low (had 12 or 14 years back then). When new PC appear on my desk i was very happy, beacuse of Arma (even when i had low FPS), my low budget PC (new but used :P ) was giving last breath, then arma 2 released. I was still just user without internet and i was going for everything to internet cafe (for addons, mods,patches) and my FPS was even lower than in arma 2. For years i didnt had money for new PC, then OFP 2 was released and there was one reason like (lets just stay on that pc, this is runing (OFP2), so there is a time). And 3 years ago i saw Arma 3 on life at my friend - i had a good but hard job in that period and decided to buy new PC. I created account here and become something more than just user. As arma 3 was in Beta (something like), i decided to be fully usefull for developers and catch most of bugs - i received bans for this, but i didnt gave up. RHS team even bans me for that. I made small addon and just playing now. But with my slower, and slower internet connection i cannot download 6Gb patches outside house. Steam logo on Arma 3 box was something i didnt liked. I remembered red orchestra was runing wihtout steam very well (was installed with steam, but i was able to launch it with its exe from main folder). But patching was something that was requiring faster connection than 128kb/s.

Now i'm paying for 1mb/s but have 384kb/s - "Anakonda 2016" and some works (officiall statement, but no details) destroyed my connection for NEXT 2 years. Noone from my neighbours have faster internet, even if they had 200mb/s, they have now 384kb/s (off course if the net is not overloaded). Steam would be best client for games, if it would had offline updates for games - like arma 2 had. Now i'm on RC branch (arma 3) and whenBIS updated their job (Rc was updated, 5GB), my neighbours just screemed all the time "Who the hell is blocking my connection!". Then i heard they will not release something beacuse of me. Am i getting too old for todays gaming, or steam is getting more control over us?

[Boss-Starstreams 11]

It is an improvement for the diversity of the mods and mission, and yes many people got into arma because they have seen it on steam.

 

So going to steam was more about getting more customers it sounds like, vers the original mentality of making an extremely realistic game and being more personal with a smaller audience.

 

Like BIS didn't have enough customers already? it's called Greed. When do people ever have enough...NEVER. All this BS about steam being better for distribution of updates, give me a break. It was better in the past. You post an update to your web site, it later gets distributed on mirrors, and the customer downloads it, That's it. There is nothing steam does to make the updates work more effectively, and if anything it just adds to instability of the game because it's another thing running in the background that can conflict. The devs went to steam because it was an opportunity to make a boat load of money and expand their base of customers. The once small club of intellectual supporters has been exposed and saturated with new members who lack the original intention of a game (that so many supported). BIS is busy making other titles for steam, they love the money, rather then putting the extra time that could be used towards making realistic cockpits that actually function like real planes. The modders in the community are making more realistic looking vehicles and planes then the developers. Not because the developers are not capable, they just don't care.  Many of us supported BIS since the start of OFP, probably before some of these new people were ever born. we have eyes.

 

Cherry coat it anyway you want dude.  I resist the tug of popular sentiment.

[lawndartleo 109]

BIS is not in business to make you or anyone else happy.  They are in business to make money.  If they make you or anyone else happy in the course of business, all the better but the bottom line is ALWAYS the bottom line.  Period.

[veles-zv 176]

Steam is not the problem. Power hungry communities where the leaders immediately take ranks like 'General' are. Used to be in a community which had 200 players and 6 staff grade general officers, and another 25 officers on top of that. Everyone else was an NCO. In that community, 'rank' becomes the be all and end all and they shat on everyone below them for that reason, even those who had actual military experience and were attempting to help them. Unsurprisingly, shitting on people regularly drives players out to form their own communities which split into smaller and smaller units until you get LOADS of tiny communities and no co-operation between them.

Because of this, people drift to Wasteland as they can't get a decent game, starving the larger Domination and Mission servers of players. Servers that do get player numbers are also occasionally swamped with administrators who have paid/donated/applied for admin positions, not people who actually know how to administrate, meaning that they also lose players due to people throwing weight around. If you want someone to blame, blame the communities that force people out, blame the bad admins who force people to congregate on a tiny number of decent servers (and even those have being going down hill lately) and blame the Life/Wasteland players who want to shoot everything that moves regardless of uniforms or tactics.

life,wasteland, king of the hill and generally any public gamemode is cancer, most are just horribly optimized missions run on the worst servers... and new players who see that they can only join public server general think that this is all that arma is...

[zooloo75 834]

life,wasteland, king of the hill and generally any public gamemode is cancer, most are just horribly optimized missions run on the worst servers... and new players who see that they can only join public server general think that this is all that arma is...

This is why I only play singleplayer. All I see in the server browser are life servers and private clan servers running a bunch of mods: I can't play multiplayer.

[R0adki11 3949]

This is why I only play singleplayer. All I see in the server browser are life servers and private clan servers running a bunch of mods: I can't play multiplayer.

There are some squads out there that do play normal PvP and without mods. My squad plays PvP - traditional CTF and C&H like we have been playing since OFP :)

[NsurgNt 3]

BI is to blame for the current state of the community, they decided to use Steam as a distribution platform instead of the original method of hard copy discs. Before steam, the Arma community was largely active duty, reservists and hardcore milsim enthusiasts and their friends who had learned about Arma largely by word of mouth. It was like a secret society only talked about in hushed whispers, well protected from the larger gaming world. Now its a giant clusterfoxtrot of ads, and money this, money that. Before the introduction of digital distribution, Arma2 was a game crafted by the community with attention to detail and and a love and dedication to realism found in no other game on earth. Nobody cared about money, everything was created out of love and a desire to maintain realism or to add things to the game that were not supplied by BI. Now it is all about the money, and I dont see that changing untill the money runs out or the community dwindles to nothing.  F U very much Steam, for convincing the pc gaming world that they needed a program to be able to play the games they purchased. and that having someone hold your hand is better than learning to update and maintain your own games. 

[Vasily.B 529]

If Arma 4 will ever came out, i'm praying there will be also version without steam (just on discs, like Arma 1 and 2 was). One serious note of steam is lack of possibility to revert 2+ updates back. You cant skip any update, You cant go fully offline (for good, not for some time), and some poeple say its 2018, who havent internet? I would say "its 2018, why people dont have a choice?"

[Macser 776]

Steam may give way to another platform at some point. But it's form of distribution is probably going to be around for the foreseeable future. Companies will always find the path of least resistance in terms of cost and development. From their point of view it's too attractive an option.

 

People who use the steam service are quite obviously in the majority. That's what developers and publishers look to. That's who they listen to. Whether some of us like it or not, that's the practicality of it. So there's only two options going forward. Avoid it and do without what it offers. Or grin and bear it.

 

As it's a larger arena it obviously invites more knuckle-draggers and scumbags to the party. But there's plenty of decent folk using the service too. I don't see how that would stop communities from forming around a game though. They don't require a developer or distributor to be involved. It's still driven by people. 

 

I suppose a lot of it depends on how you define community. If your only connection is the fact you play the same game, I wouldn't consider that in of itself a community. That's just a circumstance. Community for me is connecting with other people playing the games. Sharing or helping each other. Making friends and acquaintances. Collaborating on modding projects. I still see that happening. Although perhaps not on the same scale as it did with OFP.

[Vasily.B 529]

Exacly.... I'm connecting to some server, where people are waiting in on stadium on Altis, they just walking, jumping etc.... server name was ".... conquest", what we have to conquer? Where? HOW? This is the effect of "scumbag" part of community, when i enabled Voice communication i was feeling i'm in first class school - average age of players was 9-12 years old. This is what Steam brings to Arma. Next map was again some coop mission, mission starts, again 4 kids playing in team with me, after they heard i'm older than them, they rammed me with BTR and laughing...... So next (and last) map with RHS mods included (off course CUP vehicles also, even when there wasnt any on the map, just additional gigs to download.....) Mission starts, everyone plays Rambo in single man squads, in diferent direction, i'm connecting microphone and asking "WTF? Who is going with me?" "Where are you heading (random player name)" - quiet..... 2 minute of mission, 2 players stay (including me), rest is dead and leave the server. Then i see firendly SU-25, i'm thinking its going give me covering fire, i'm close to enemy outpost... NO! Happy kid screaming "wooooo!" smashing me with 30mmm autocannon.... Since then (month ago) i dont play multi at all. Everytime i launch it, it brings me a nightmare of cry-team. When i look for some normal community, i need to register everywhere, on X forums, apply for invitation (just like in normal military papers - WTF!?) just to play 2 hours per week. I ask  WHAT STEAM HAVE GIVEN TO ARMA? Besides dividing community, it bunch of kids, Life servers, Grand Theft auto simulators, dinosaur players, remmebering OFP times, me playing first time multi with Arma 2, can just stay offline to limit number of stressfull situations.

[spanishsurfer 58]

On 2/6/2018 at 6:42 PM, Vasily.B said:

Exacly.... I'm connecting to some server, where people are waiting in on stadium on Altis, they just walking, jumping etc.... server name was ".... conquest", what we have to conquer? Where? HOW? This is the effect of "scumbag" part of community, when i enabled Voice communication i was feeling i'm in first class school - average age of players was 9-12 years old. This is what Steam brings to Arma. Next map was again some coop mission, mission starts, again 4 kids playing in team with me, after they heard i'm older than them, they rammed me with BTR and laughing...... So next (and last) map with RHS mods included (off course CUP vehicles also, even when there wasnt any on the map, just additional gigs to download.....) Mission starts, everyone plays Rambo in single man squads, in diferent direction, i'm connecting microphone and asking "WTF? Who is going with me?" "Where are you heading (random player name)" - quiet..... 2 minute of mission, 2 players stay (including me), rest is dead and leave the server. Then i see firendly SU-25, i'm thinking its going give me covering fire, i'm close to enemy outpost... NO! Happy kid screaming "wooooo!" smashing me with 30mmm autocannon.... Since then (month ago) i dont play multi at all. Everytime i launch it, it brings me a nightmare of cry-team. When i look for some normal community, i need to register everywhere, on X forums, apply for invitation (just like in normal military papers - WTF!?) just to play 2 hours per week. I ask  WHAT STEAM HAVE GIVEN TO ARMA? Besides dividing community, it bunch of kids, Life servers, Grand Theft auto simulators, dinosaur players, remmebering OFP times, me playing first time multi with Arma 2, can just stay offline to limit number of stressfull situations.

 

My experience with Steam and A3 has been mostly a positive experience. Steam allows content creators to share their work in a method thats easy for the end user to download and easy for sever admins to apply onto their missions, allowing seamless joining. No more having to hunt down a mod, ensure it's the right version, updating is now easier.

 

The system is not perfect, but using steam and having the A3 vanilla launcher has made using customs mods on a public server EONS better than it used to be. I've been a player, admin, dev since 2001, A3 has brought more to the table in 3 years than any other version before it.

 

I suggest finding a community with mature players, there are hundreds out there. If you join a server with KOTH or LIFE stamped on it you're going to have a bad time.

 

And FYI, I'm 34 if you're wondering if I'm 1 of those kids.

 

[Valken 622]

I agree with a lot of the old timers here but we have to be realistic that BIS has to grow as company to keep supporting ARMA 3. That means new consumers good or bad to fund that path of support.

 

We live in a BIG real world and all kinds of people = young, old, smart, not so smart, good, bad, and douchbags as well... Just deal with it because seriously, we can't waste our time policing it every minute.

 

I like Steam but disdain their community also because I've grown out of that high school thinking only to be thrown back into it. The mentality there is a big turn off... for me.

 

I think the solution is actually to allow server rankings or tagging to filter through all the unwanted stuff so like minded folks can congregate. That is one solution - to have communities within the Steam community or outside of it. 

 

I did join a few KOTH and LIFE servers just to see what it was about... and when I find a community server I like, I favorite it. Maybe we should just do that share for liked minded folks and leave the rest to everyone else. No one can not use this function to hang out with their friends.

 

This would be an ideal democratic process.

[NsurgNt 3]

Steam gives nothing to the Arma community. The Arma community was thriving long before the introduction of Steam. Yes, it required a brain to be able to install mods, create content, setup and admin your own server. all these things are part of what made our community so great. The addition of Steam as a requirement to play Arma has allowed those who are not mature enough or knowledgeable enough or investigative enough to access something upon which those three qualities were a requirement. Since Steam has been a part of Arma, anyone with a finger and a payment method can purchase Arma and add mods without knowing anything about file structure. And therein lies the problem, The old community were people who had a hunger for knowledge that is absent in todays steam world. It is this ease of access that Steam has allowed and BIs hunger for more money that has changed the Arma community from what it once was, into what it has now become. Just my 2 cents.

[Macser 776]

Is steam required for people to create their own communities? Do you have no other option but to interact with these annoying little game goblins? That's a genuine question.

 

I'm not defending BI. Mostly because they don't need anyone to defend them. They're just a company doing their thing. I don't see the same kind of corporate greed that exists elsewhere though. I think it's a positive thing that they haven't invited a major publisher to the table for example.

 

If they did, I'm sure it would have a negative impact for the player. If they were as greedy as you think, they'd have gone down that road before now. And lost a good deal of control in the process. They are in it to make money. I don't see any reason why they shouldn't. But we're not talking EA levels of world domination, where they want ALL the money. Even the DLCs seem to be handled fairly well in comparison to other games.

 

Given my statements, you might be surprised to know I don't use it. Complaining about it, for me, is like spitting in the wind. steam is the most popular platform out there for digital distribution. It makes economic sense to take advantage of it. Even with the drawbacks for certain people. If those unhappy with steam are in a minority, which they are, who would you listen to as someone trying to maintain a company into the future?

 

You can't please everybody. So you'll always have to make decisions that piss somebody off. But you still have to make them. 

[Vasily.B 529]

I will say something that may be funny for a moment, but in further perspective, it may happen really - what will happen if Steam will be down? Remember Games for windows Live? Even if they will not be down, they just can change something in their regulations - for example subscriptions for Multi-player like in Playstation and Xbox, beacuse why not? If we talk about greedy, BIS may have nothing to do with it, but we Arma is connected with steam - there is no guarantee about steam will not be greedy. Here is the problem. Game as itself and way its distributed may stay ok, but steam regulations may change from some random day and we all be f****d.

Distrubution of game in the same way as Arma 2 would be perfect solution, and would not harm anyone in any aspect. Uploading some extra GB in todays companies dont take long, if Arma 4 would have 2 variants - Steam and box (without any platform) - i would choose box with no extra thinking.

Also , there is one other, fantastic, great and pro-consumer platform called GoG, where you can play your game with or without their platform (GoG Galaxy). Releaseing game on GoG (and maybe steam) seems to be perfect solution for both - BIS and us, players.

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

Given the title "Whats happened to this community", I can honestly say "nothing". 

I'm not even going to compare it to other game communities because frankly, I don't care. The OFP/Arma community has been a part of my life since 2001. I have met some outstanding people here over the years. Some stay, some go and thankfully, quite a few return to the fold (DeanosBeanos, Loki, and O'Christie to name just a few). I've taken road trips to see pals, stayed at their homes, had dinner with their families and of course drank lots of alcohol with them. 

Steam is not a community. It is digital distribution platform that happens to have a comment section. Please do not confuse the two. 

[Macser 776]

On 12/02/2018 at 5:25 PM, Vasily.B said:

Also , there is one other, fantastic, great and pro-consumer platform called GoG, where you can play your game with or without their platform (GoG Galaxy). Releaseing game on GoG (and maybe steam) seems to be perfect solution for both - BIS and us, players.

I do use GOG myself. And had A3 been available through that service I'd own a copy. But from what I understand it's not a simple case of creating a game and just throwing it to distributors. I assume on a technical level there has to be a modified version tailored to each one. I can't claim to know what the cost of that is, either in monetary terms or hours spent of course.

 

I'm just guessing they decided to take the easier route and have one distribution service and one version of the game. Less to keep track of and maintain probably. Still. I don't think that's going to affect the community that exists around it.As I mentioned before, I believe that's  in the hands of the people playing/modding the game.

 

Oddly enough, most of the people I've helped out over the past few years have been using A3. And that wasn't through steam. It's not the only way to connect with folks. I think discord has gotten pretty popular outside these boards. Obviously I see things from a modding pespective, more so than a player's. But I don't think that makes what I'm saying any less valid.

 

On 12/02/2018 at 5:36 PM, FallujahMedic -FM- said:

quite a few return to the fold (DeanosBeanos, Loki, and O'Christie to name just a few).

 Deano's still creating things that are as frightening as they are interesting.

[spanishsurfer 58]

Some of the comments on steam catering to the young and immature are just not accurate. Within our community Steam has made it easy for older folks who are not IT savy to find our server, download and keep mods updated and play with us on a daily basis. 

 

Sure, some clowns make it on the server but we have admins to deal with them. Id rather gain new folks via Steam and filter out the immature folks then go back to the old system that frankly sucked.

 

I'm speaking as an admin, without Steam we would have never been able to host a public server that requires 10GB of custom maps and content and survive for an extended period of time.

 

I think it was already mentioned, some are confusing Steam discussions (which are toxic) with the distribution system/platform. 

[Frod.o 0]

I would not say that this is steam's fault, but the franchise is growing which means different kinds of players are joining.